Colonel Quaritch, V.C. eBook

“I suppose that they trusted to their moat and
walls, and the hagger at the bottom of the dry ditch,”
said the Colonel. “You see there is no
eminence from which they could be commanded, and their
archers could sweep all the plain from the battlements.”

“Ah, yes, of course they could. It is easy
to see that you are a soldier. They were no fools,
those old crusaders. My word, we must be getting
on. They are hauling down the Union Jack on the
west tower. I always have it hauled down at sunset,”
and he began walking briskly again.

In another three minutes they had crossed a narrow
by-road, and were passing up the ancient drive that
led to the Castle gates. It was not much of a
drive, but there were still some half-dozen of old
pollard oaks that had no doubt stood there before
the Norman Boissey, from whose family, centuries ago,
the de la Molles had obtained the property by marriage
with the heiress, had got his charter and cut the
first sod of his moat.

Right before them was the gateway of the Castle, flanked
by two great towers, and these, with the exception
of some ruins were, as a matter of fact, all that
remained of the ancient building, which had been effectually
demolished in the time of Cromwell. The space
within, where the keep had once stood, was now laid
out as a flower garden, while the house, which was
of an unpretentious nature, and built in the Jacobean
style, occupied the south side of the square, and was
placed with its back to the moat.

“You see I have practically rebuilt those two
towers,” said the Squire, pausing underneath
the Norman archway. “If I had not done it,”
he added apologetically, “they would have been
in ruins by now, but it cost a pretty penny, I can
tell you. Nobody knows what stuff that old flint
masonry is to deal with, till he tries it. Well,
they will stand now for many a long day. And
here we are”—­and he pushed open a
porch door and then passed up some steps and through
a passage into an oak-panelled vestibule, which was
hung with tapestry originally taken, no doubt, from
the old Castle, and decorated with coats of armour,
spear heads, and ancient swords.

And here it was that Harold Quaritch once more beheld
the face which had haunted his memory for so many
months.

CHAPTER III

ThetaleofsirJamesdelaMolle

“Is that you, father?” said a voice, a
very sweet voice, but one of which the tones betrayed
the irritation natural to a healthy woman who has
been kept waiting for her dinner. The voice came
from the recesses of the dusky room in which the evening
gloom had gathered deeply, and looking in its direction,
Harold Quaritch could see the outline of a tall form
sitting in an old oak chair with its hands crossed.

“Is that you, father? Really it is too
bad to be so late for dinner—­ especially
after you blew up that wretched Emma last night because
she was five minutes after time. I have been
waiting so long that I have almost been asleep.”